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Complete Dissertation VU Research Portal Hermeneutical explorations of multiple religious belonging Oostveen, D.F. 2020 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Oostveen, D. F. (2020). Hermeneutical explorations of multiple religious belonging. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 24. Sep. 2021 VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT HERMENEUTICAL EXPLORATIONS OF MULTIPLE RELIGIOUS BELONGING ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor of Philosophy aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr. V. Subramaniam, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie van de Faculteit Religie en Theologie op donderdag 10 september 2020 om 9.45 uur in de aula van de universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105 door Daan Frans Oostveen geboren te Eindhoven promotoren: prof.dr. A.F.M. van der Braak prof.dr. M. Kalsky 2 Content Introduction 7 Chapter 1 36 Multiple religious belonging: a hermeneutical problem 1.1 Multiple religious belonging from the perspective of theology 1.1.1 Terminological diversity in theology 1.1.2 Pluralism and particularism 1.1.2.1 Multiple religious belonging from a pluralistic perspective 1.1.2.2 Multiple religious belonging from a particularistic perspective 1.1.3 Critiques of theology of religions 1.2 “Multiple religious belonging” in the social scientific study of religion 1.2.1 Terminological diversity in the social scientific study of religion 1.2.1.1 Syncretism 1.2.1.2 Spiritual, but not religious 1.2.1.3 From patchwork to hybridity 1.2.2 Approaches to multiple religious belonging in the social sciences 1.2.2.1 Lived religion 1.3 Hermeneutic of multiple religions and hermeneutic of religiosity 1.4 Conclusion 3 Chapter 2 84 Conceptual analysis of religious multiplicity, religion, and religious belonging 2.1. The multiple 2.1.1 Two hermeneutics, two understandings of religious multiplicity 2.1.2 Spatial multiplicity: hermeneutic of multiple religions 2.1.3 Temporal multiplicity: hermeneutic of religiosity 2.2. Religion 2.2.1 Historical overview of the concept of “religion” 2.2.2 Contemporary critiques of “religion” 2.2.3 Religion as a contested concept 2.3 Belonging 2.3.1 Theological critiques of belonging 2.3.2 Conceptual approaches to belonging 2.3.3 Three ideal types of religious belonging 2.3.4 Absence of belonging or a belonging of ultimate concern? Chapter 3 144 A comparative approach to multiple religious belonging from the perspective of Chinese religious culture 3.1 Multiple religious belonging in Asia 3.2 Chinese understandings of religious diversity 3.3 Historical overview of hermeneutical reflections on religious diversity in China from the Han until the Ming 3.4 Pragmatic nature of Chinese religion 4 3.5 Contemporary religious hybridity in China 3.6 Religious belonging in China 3.7 The world religions paradigm in contemporary China 3.8 Conclusion Chapter 4 181 A rhizomatic hermeneutic of multiple religious belonging 4.1 Subverting the logic of the One 4.2 The arborescent schema and religious diversity 4.3 Multiple religious belonging and the rhizome 4.4 Principles of the rhizome and multiple religious belonging 4.5 Multiple religious belonging as assemblage 4.6 Rhizomatic belonging in China and the West 4.7 Conclusion Conclusion 207 Bibliography 224 Summary 247 Curriculum Vitae Author 249 5 INTRODUCTION 6 Introduction “[…] we seem to have uncritically accepted definitional boundaries that distinguish religious practices of one religious group from another’s, viewing them as mutually exclusive […]”1 Once upon a time, all the people of the world belonged to a religion. Dependent on the region of the world they lived in, they directed their hopes and fears to the same source. They ate together in the same way, the performed their rituals together in the same way, and they shared a common worldview. Different peoples had different rituals and worldviews; the same people had the same rituals and worldviews. Then the people of the world began travelling. They started meeting each other. They learned about the sources of other people. They learned the meaning of religious difference: different people, had different rituals and worldviews. Some argued, however, that these religious differences were only superficial. That deep down, under all the cultural differences between nations, one ultimate reality permeated all these religious practices and worldviews. Beyond religious difference, we can find religious unity: all comes from the same source. This story is a tempting one. It has been told by many people, from different times, at different places. It had an appeal in the world of antiquity, it had an appeal in China, it had an appeal in Christian Europe and it still has an appeal in the “secular liberal democratic Western world” of today. This story, however, is fundamentally flawed. In the contemporary globalized world, cultural and religious diversity contributes to increasingly complex identities. In Western countries, scholars of religion have observed the emergence of what has sometimes been called “multiple religious belonging”. Guided by individual choice, or as a result of a multi-religious cultural background, many people find themselves adopting new forms of religious belonging, combining elements from a variety of religious traditions or belonging to different religious traditions at the same time. To give meaning to their lives, many people rely on multiple religious sources. 1 Meredith McGuire, Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 86. 7 A great number of studies have attested to these phenomena.2 While church membership and participation has been continually declining since the Second World War in Western Europe,3 religious scholars have witnessed the rise of a large group of “religious creatives”, who use various “religious fragments” and rely on personal reflection.4 Some scholars claim that “religion”, defined as membership and affiliation to a religious organization, is being replaced by individual forms of “spirituality”.5 These new forms of belief and spirituality are supposed to exist across the borders of religious traditions.6 Among theologians, there is an increased attention to the “pioneers of the interreligious dialogue” who have extended experience and knowledge from multiple religious traditions.7 When asked whether they combine elements of various religious traditions in their lives, 24% of Dutch respondents to Berghuijs’ research on hybrid religiosity in the Netherlands, responded affirmative.8 In Western societies, Christianity often continues to play an important role as an inspiration for religious identity, ethics and religious practices. However, other religious traditions have also become firmly established in Dutch society, including both Abrahamic traditions such as Islam and Judaism, but also Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. These religious traditions have been present in Dutch society in great proximity to each other. But also other religious tradition have gained influence in the lives and minds of religious people in the West: Indigenous American worldviews such as the religion of the Mayans or other native American tribes, all 2 Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead, The Spiritual Revolution (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1996); Chung Hyun Kyung, Struggle to Be the Sun Again. Introducing Asian Women’s Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1990). Manuela Kalsky, “Embracing Diversity: Reflections on the Transformation of Christian Identity,” Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 17 (2007), 221-31; Ton Bernts and Joantine Berghuijs, God in Nederland 1996 – 2015 (Utrecht: Ten Have, 2016); Robert Wuthnow, Loose Connections: Joining Together in America’s Fragmented Communities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). Reinhold Bernhardt and Perry Schmidt-Leukel, eds., in Bernhardt and Schmidt-Leukel, Multiple religiöse Identität Identität: Aus verschiedenen Traditionen schöpfen (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2008); Gideon Goosen, “An Empirical Study of Dual Religious Belonging,” Journal of Empirical Theology 20 (2007), 159-78. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Many Americans mix multiple faiths, Pew Forum, 2009; Susan Katz Miller, Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (Beacon Press, 2013). 3 Bernts and Berghuijs, God in Nederland; Grace Davie, Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging (Oxford / Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 1994). 4 Bernhardt and Schmidt-Leukel, Multiple religiöse Identität, 7. 5 Heelas and Woodhead, The Spiritual Revolution. 6 Bernts and Berghuijs, God in Nederland, 125. 7 Bernhardt and Schmidt-Leukel, Multiple religiöse
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